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remote arm to grip object

07-29-2010, 10:39 PM

i need help in getting a 5" dia x 1/2" steel disk out of a 6" dia pipe 15ft down, i was able to clear the pipe of paper and junk with a snake and them sent down the seesnake to find the disk, i'm in a food processing plant and can not escavate, i'm looking for a way to send down a cable with the seesnake... grip the disk and pull it out.

Push sticks/blocks Save Fingers
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"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
attributed to Samuel Johnson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PUBLIC NOTICE: Due to recent budget cuts, the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil...plus the current state of the economy............the light at the end of the tunnel, has been turned off.

Comment

Ahhh Domenic...Toronto huh? Try a heavy duty magnet from Princess Auto. If you can keep the magnet off the sides of the pipe (say with a plastic liner around it) then maybe you can reach the disk. At Home Depot they have those fiberglass poles to clean chimneys, maybe you can use them to send the magnet down?

You just joggled my memory on a previous situation I had. A few years ago we did a custom home for someone, and the house was situated in the WOODS (<--- key word) with no other houses around.

Well the customer really had to take to a leak, so what does he do? He takes a leak into a water bottle, and proceeds to dump the fluid down a 4" toilet line that's in his basement. The bottle slipped out of his hand, and down the drain line!! lol

First off..you're in the freaking woods!! Wtf was he doing peeing into a bottle in the first place?

Well the only thing I could think of..was using a shop vac that was very powerful, and sucked the bottle up. I was really afraid of pushing the bottle further down the drain line, and not being able to get it. If that didn't work..jack hammers were coming out and some concrete floor coming up.

Comment

my thought was to sleeve a magnet as well (preferable round), and attaché a head so one could put on a cable, and work it down to the slug and then pull it back out,

I was trying to figure out what the shields were on some of these pick up magnets, like sears sells and some others sell, and have not found out yet,

I was just looking at "northern tool" http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...ct_52525_52525 through there magnets, and a trailer break magnet was on the picture, A trailer break magnet might work, work that down and clip the wires to a 12 volt battery and pull it out, (of course one would have to extend the wires), I have never tried this so I do not know if it will or not work,

try it in the shop in a test situation first,

Push sticks/blocks Save Fingers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
attributed to Samuel Johnson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PUBLIC NOTICE: Due to recent budget cuts, the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil...plus the current state of the economy............the light at the end of the tunnel, has been turned off.

Comment

How about an electro-magnet? Energize it when it is placed in the vicinity of or contacts the disk. Attach it to the end of a push rod, make your electrical connections water tight, and give it a go.

How about a three or four fingered claw running inside a tube like one of those 24" parts grabbers but much longer. position the claw to grab the edge of the disk and then lock them on and drag it out. Might slip off a couple times but every inch closer to you counts.

I've never tried to do anything like this in a drain or sewer, but have had to retrieve things from inside pipe lines before. Sometimes when doing valve repairs or when replacing sections of pipe bits and pieces get 'lost' and must be removed prior to startup. Even a tiny piece of weld slag could damage valve seat, plug a heat exchanger tube, or damage a turbine blade. The chance of damage that could run into hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair is not taken lightly. NOTHING is allowed to enter the pipe that does not need to be there, and everything taken into the work area (EVERY tool, nut, bolt, rag, glove, washer, ty-rap, etc) must be logged going in and accounted for coming out.

Most times a video inspection is performed just to be sure, even if everything was accounted for on the log sheets.

edit:

I see that BHD came up with a similar solution to mine, didn't read his post before I started blabbering. :-( Anyway, if we both thought of it independently it can't be too far out of an idea huh?

Comment

I've had good success with vac trucks for rocks, some success with wet vacs. Which if I can do it at 10000' elevation you should be able to do better lower; more atmospheric pressure = more suction.

does it have a hole in the middle, like a washer? with a feature like that to grap hold of you could maybe get it with a piece of heavy wire bent right (a loose spiral with the tip out where you can use it) and attached to the end of a snake cable.

or try a hook bent in the wire attached to cable or to camera; round profile may make that difficult.

agree with trying the magnet, but the cast iron pipe will make it frustrating.

consider what happens downstream; could you push it down to an easy access point?

This is my reminder to myself that no good will ever come from discussing politics or religion with anyone, ever.

Comment

I think this post and others like it show how much improvements could be made for cameras. I think a retreiver with many attachments and magnets would be a big seller. I'm trying to come up with something. I would think ridgid could do a better job then me.